


Diamonds, Glancing

by Mags



Series: Avengersbent [5]
Category: Homestuck, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Troll AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mags/pseuds/Mags
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scene is Alternia, a few dozen sweeps after the Summoner's rebellion. Two lowbloods, one Steave Rojers and one Buckee Barnez, grow up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whenever I get my hands on the Captain America movie again I will finish this up.
> 
> Quick note: "Love" means general quadrant feelings rather than flushed feelings.

You’ve been in love with Buckee for so long that you didn’t know it was love.

As wigglers, you are inseparable. You meet him soon after your emergence from the trials (he is a few perigees older than you) and soon you spend most of your nights together--you see each other as often or more than your lusii. Your blood is a few shades above brown and his a shade above yours, and all is right with the world.

You assume that the feelings you have for him are just strong friendship, and wonder why more trolls don’t have friends like you do.

One night, when you're four and a half, you and Buckee save up enough to see a movie. It's the third movie you've ever seen, and it's a pale romance. You're completely enthralled but it's only when you step out of the theatre and look at Buckee, identical smiles on your faces, that you realize you're madly, sadly pale for your best friend.

But really, what can you say? “Hey, Buckee, I know we've been great friends for sweeps now but thanks to a movie I now know that I've been unknowingly hankering to hop into a pile and feelings jam with you and pap your adorable face. No pressure.”

Yeah, no. No way are you going to wreck your friendship because of a little palecrush.

Nevertheless, it’s a rather awkward perigee as you continually scrutinize your interactions, watching everything you say to him to make sure you don’t come off as too pale.

You grow up like this and learn to appreciate your crush without Buckee ever knowing.

☆

You almost tell him, once. He’s just turned eight (your wriggling day isn’t for a few perigees more) and he’s not back at the usual time.

You stay up, waiting for him, and eventually he returns to the small hive you two share, perilously late into the morning. He’s flushed and grinning and slightly sunburnt. He flops on the reclining mat, arms spread wide.

“I just got pailed and oh my god it is the _best thing ever_ ,” he says in a rush.

You want to hug him, kiss him, snuggle up next to him and talk about feelings all day long, and it _hurts_ , almost. But your previous silence weighs heavily on your tongue, so instead you put a bit of a laugh into your voice and say, “So that lime you were making eyes at reciprocated?”

“Hell yes,” he says, breathless.

“That’s good,” you say. You sneak a look at him and he’s still laying there, grinning up at the ceiling. “You should probably get to ’coon.”

Buckee is silent for a good ten seconds and you panic because that sounded pretty pale to you.

“Yeah,” he says eventually, unbuttoning his shirt distractedly. “You need to find someone concupiscent soon, Steave, it’s amazing as _fuck_.”

And how he _wounds_ you! Surely he doesn’t mean to tempt you, obviously you’re misinterpreting normal, friendly advice.

“Tomorrow,” you say, undressing as well. You both get to sleep eventually, and neither of you mention your conversation the next night.


	2. Chapter 2

“...Your audience contained what was left of the 107th,” Pegaza is saying. “The rest were killed or captured.”

“The 107th?” The number is terribly familiar and you feel like someone’s pulled the floor out from underneath you, complete with the lurch in your digestion sac. You knew, abstractly, that Buckee was out here, but you’d assumed (too naively) that he was fine.

“What?” Pegaza is only gently concerned--irrationally, you hate her for not knowing how big of a deal this is.

You spring up from your seat and run out of the shelterblock into the main area of the base. “Come on!” you say, ignoring the drizzle and dim light as you charge off toward the commandblock.

☆

“Colonel Philip,” you say, striding into the commandblock. (Pegaza follows you inside, pulling her overcoat off of her horns.)

“Well if it isn’t the star-spanged troll with a plan. What is your plan today,” Philip asks, deadpan.

“I need the casualty list from Azano.”

“You don’t get to give me orders, son,”

“I just need one name. Buckee Barnez, a Himiles, from the 107th.”

“You and I are going to have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy,” Philip says to Pegaza, ignoring you entirely.

“Please tell me if he’s alive, sir,” you say. Just this time, you can beg. “B-A-R--”

“I can spell.”

Philip meets your stare for a moment before sighing and looking down at his desk. “I have signed more of these quadrant-condolence letters today than I would care to count,” he says. “But... the name does sound familiar. I’m sorry.”

You didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse, but it is. You shove the despair and anger into a locked box in the bottom of your collapsing and expanding vascular system and move forward. “What about the others? Are you planning a rescue mission?”

“Yeah, it’s called winning the war,” Philip says dismissively.

“But if you know where they are, why not at least--”

“They’re thirty lightyears behind the lines, in some of the most heavily fortified territory in the galaxy,” Philip snaps, angry and bitter. “We’d lose more men than we’d save. I don’t expect you to understand that because you’re a chorus girl.”

“I think I understand just fine.” You will _not_ permit this entirely platonic hatred to interfere with your judgement. Will not.

“Well then understand it somewhere else. If I read the posters correctly, you’ve got somewhere to be in 30 minutes.”

You get a good look at the galaxy map on the wall. “...Yes, sir. I do.”

You don’t intend to make it a showy exit but it turns into one as you stalk out of the commandblock and into the light and rain.

“If you have something to say, now would be a perfect time to keep it to yourself,” Philip says to Pegaza as you’re leaving.

She doesn’t say a word, turning and following you out.

☆

And just like that, you’re riding with Starck and Pegaza in a spaceship outfitted with his newest psionic coupling systems, ready to drop you off deep inside enemy territory. Though you’re shot at when you’re near the base, you’re able to slip past the majority of the barrage in a tiny retrofitted escape pod.

They vanish in a reddish bloom of psionic energy and you’re all alone, breath loud in your ears. Small but getting larger is the planet 43-SER-16e14s, more colloquially known as Azano, where Buckee was lost. (Not gone for good, just misplaced. And you’re going to rectify that, dammit.) The Hydra base is on the orbiting asteroid, which is thankfully on this side of Azano.

It’s weirdly easy to plaster your pod up against the side of an incoming freighter and slip inside, but you guess Hydra wasn’t expecting an attack after their recent victory.

Your new body makes easy work of the guards and the sneaking you have to do, and freeing the captured soldiers eases the ache in your collapsing and expanding vascular system just a little.

But then Buckee isn’t there either and you have only the tiniest thread of hope left now, but that thread is enough to lead you to the isolation wards. You leave the prisoners to cause as much chaos as possible in the base before taking off, chasing the last bit of hope you have, the shadow of Buckee Barnez.

Deep in the lowest levels of the Hydra base, that shadow solidifies into the small, unintimidating silhouette of Zoalla. You chase him halfheartedly as he runs away, but even before he turns the corner you know there’s no way that you can catch him.

Without even thinking, you turn off into one of the open doors--serendipity perhaps, or maybe you merely caught a snatch of a familiar voice--

\--and suddenly everything’s going to be okay, because Buckee’s there, strapped down to a medical slab, eyes closed and muttering his sign and rank, surrounded by ominous (but somehow familiar) machinery.

At your “Buckee” his eyes open but focus middle distance, somewhere around your mouth. You jostle the table a little, because maybe then he’ll laugh and smile and joke at you, but he doesn’t respond at all.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, and start undoing the straps. In gloves it’s impossible, though, so you end up just ripping the straps off.

“Hey. It’s me, it’s Steave,” you say, and Buckee focuses on your face, albeit slowly.

“Steave,” he says, like he’s trying to remember something he’s almost forgotten. Then, “Steave,” and recognition and a smile dawn.

“Come on,” you say, pulling him off of the operating slab and onto unsteady feet. You cup his face in one hand and, without thinking, place a moonlight-pale kiss on his cheek.

His expression doesn’t change.

“I thought you were dead,” you explain.

“I thought you were smaller,” Buckee quips absentmindedly.

An explosion rocks the station, reminding you of the larger situation. You catch a glimpse of a map on the wall, among the machinery, that looks important.

“C’mon.” You steer him towards the door with an arm around his shoulders, trying to make up for lost time.

“What happened to you?”

“I joined the army,” you say, and it’s technically true. Now is not the time for an in-depth explanation of hemoboosting and vita-rays, after all.

You only make it a few steps (letting go of his shoulders in the process) before Buckee pipes up again.

“Did it hurt?”

“A little,” you lie.

“Permanent?” He’s lagging behind and you half-wonder if it’s because he’s wasting think-pan cycles asking you silly questions.

“So far,” you assure him, turning back and holding out a hand to get him to catch up.

☆

As soon as you come out into the factory area you come almost face-to-face with Redskull, but a confrontation is narrowly avoided by Zoalla’s uncomfortably ashen handiwork, separating the purrbeastwalk while the factory floor goes up in flames.

(Buckee slips in a quick “You don’t have one of those, do you?” during the confrontation. It’s a heartening reminder of his constant stream of snarky commentary back on Alternia.)

With no Redskull to fight, you instead focus on getting out of here. The next floor up has a support strut but there’s only room for one.

☆☆☆

It’s getting light when you finally return to the Imperial Army camp you, Pegaza, and Starck left from.

With a whole flotilla of stolen Hydra vessels in tow, you approach the colony cautiously and broadcast your position loud and clear for anyone to see.

Pegaza hails you shortly after you get in range and gets the Colonel to deactivate the missiles already tracking your position.

You step off the transport, gauzy wings unfurled in the dim light, Buckee behind you, and the world stops for a while.

☆

Without your wings on full display, you cease to be the hero and go back to being just Steave.

The bar fails to fall silent at your entrance, whispers fail to pour in from the clientele and fill the space, you fail to become the center of attention. It’s how you prefer it, really.

You recruit the five soldiers that stood out in the liberation of Azano and then just sit and nurse your drink for a bit. Without the pleasant buzz of alcohol, you soon abandon the drink and decide to go up and get some air.

You find a spot on the edge of a rooftop to just sit and not think. From here, you can see unfamiliar stars through the top of the environment dome. It’s only dusk, local time, but the alternian schedule has it well past midnight already.

Buckee steps up onto the roof (you know it’s him because he drags his heels slightly, in a way that ruined many a pair of shoes back on Alternia) but you don’t, you can’t say anything to him.

He takes a good five minutes to cross the scant twenty feet between you, all stops and starts and hesitation, while you swing your legs aimlessly and draw constellations in the stars with your eyes and ignore the tumultuous mix of feelings in your digestion sac.

Eventually he takes a deep breath and strides up to you, making more headway in five seconds than he had in five minutes. He sits next to you and you get as good a look at him as you can from the corner of your eye.

He’s cleaned up somewhat but he’ll never be the same confident, handsome young troll that he was when he left Alternia. It’s a loss, that realization, and the sheer magnitude of put that wells up that that is borderline pornographic and so far from acceptable that they might as well be different planets.

“So I, uh,” Buckee starts, gesticulating broadly, “I don’t remember much of that factory before you faced off with Redskull, and this is going to sound really weird if I imagined this, but... did you kiss me, in there? With the,” he flaps his hands, trying to find words, “crazy machinery and operating slab, you know?”

You nod, and it doesn’t even cross your mind to lie.

“Not black, so--flushed or pale?”

“Pale,” you say hopelessly.

He lets out a shaky breath. When he speaks again, it’s like he’s holding back a laugh. “We are the biggest idiots, Steave. We are the biggest stupid idiots in this whole damn empire, you know?

“I’ve been trying to pale-court you, Steave, this _whole time_. I thought you didn’t like me like that.”

“What?” It just slips out, and you’re so surprised your mouth’s just running on autohelmsman now. “I thought we were just friends--”

“Just friends? Just _friends_? I put the _moves_ on you, Steave, the moves.”

“I was, uh, kind of in denial. Didn’t want to quadrant a perfectly good friendship.” You’re back to looking at him now, and his easy smile thankfully hasn’t changed at all. (Even to your ears your excuse sounds pretty stupid.)

“Wow, you’re really--wow. Everyone else I know wouldn’t have hesitated. How do you exist, Steave? How are you so _good_?”

“I had a friend--have you met him? He’s strong and brave and made sure I didn’t get my ass kicked too bad. He was always there for me.”

“Gee, that sounds a lot like you.”

You smile so wide it almost hurts and Buckee’s smile matches yours. You share a long, comfortable gaze before saying, “Okay, we are definitely the biggest idiots ever. Can we hug now?”

“ _God_ , yes.”

The roof isn’t particularly comfortable, but you twine around each other in the palest of cuddles anyway--for comfort, for security, for _moirallegiance_ \--and though you don’t yet know how to position yourselves in ways that won’t leave sore necks and pins-and-needles limbs, you have the rest of forever to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all: Sorry for the wait! I have excuses but mostly I was lazy.
> 
> There are a lot of parts of this that I like and a lot that I dislike. Updates will likely be slow due to school and other concerns (cough Mass Effect cough) BUT I do intend to write some more stuff for this crossover.
> 
> This is the extent of what I plan to write for Steave's 1940s arc. I've got some concepts and some writing for the obligatory post-Avengers team bonding fic.
> 
> See you all soon!


End file.
